Thanks to Sports by Brooks’ Twitter account (@SPORTSbyBROOKS) for pointing this out.

Mike Goldstein - not sure who he is, but I’m assuming a radio personality - maintains a blog on ESPN760.com. Today, he blogged about a mailbag posted by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez.

Goldstein wrote, “Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez is a joke.”

Pretty damn harsh.

To summarize the post, Gonzalez posted a mailbag. The first question - from “Alex” - asked a question about Ryan Howard’s contract that was nearly word-for-word the same as the lead of a Keith Law blog post a few days ago.

Mailbag question:

The contract extension the Phillies gave Howard made me laugh. If you sign a player two years before he hits free agency, you’re supposed to get a discount. Instead, the Phillies paid a premium, giving Howard more money to cover years when he won’t produce nearly enough value to justify the salary.

Law’s lead:

The contract extension the Phillies gave Ryan Howard made me laugh when I first heard about it. If you sign a player two years before he hits free agency, you’re supposed to get a discount. Instead, the Phillies paid a premium, giving Howard more money to cover years when he won’t produce nearly enough value to justify the salary.

Goldstein thought this post reason enough to implicate Gonzalez. However, in doing so, Goldstein violated a VERY basic rule of journalism.

SOMEBODY IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

I deal with it daily at Newsday.com. We get plenty of crime stories in where people are “alleged” to have been driving while intoxicated, or “police said” that a man assaulted another man.

While Goldstein made a brief, half-hearted attempt at saying he doesn’t know all the facts, he should have given Gonzalez the benefit of the doubt. What’s to say that a reader didn’t rip Law’s lead? Law has been the poster boy for bashing Howard’s contract, so assumedly, his article has been read by most baseball fans. Couldn’t a reader of Gonzalez’s work simply copy and pasted the question to make it his own?

Goldstein needs to realize that maybe, just maybe, not EVERYONE has memorized ESPN writer (and assumed colleague, even if it is on a six degrees of separation level) Law’s piece. So, by jumping to conclusions, Goldstein just called out a fellow member of the industry, calling him a joke.

What’s more is that it has hit Twitter, possibly tarnishing Gonzalez’s name when it could have been an innocent mistake.

Listen, maybe there was some shady journalism here. But if ANYBODY is a joke in this case, it’s Goldstein, for ignoring his “10 years” of journalism experience and violating a basic code.

(And yes, I know I just implicated Goldstein without talking to him. And maybe he spoke to Gonzalez. That should be PLAINLY stated in the blog post though.)